I wrote a blog post on November 5, 2025 (last month) about Zohran Mamdani winning the mayor's race in New York City. He made a lot of promises and I believe many of his promises will not come to fruition because it requires the assistance of the State, and governor Hochul, who is up to re-election in 2026, may not want to cooperate with all of his desires and promises, because she might be in a battle for her own seat and raising taxes and fees in an election year is usually not a good idea, even in deep blue New York.
This article stirred some responses, which I welcome. But I wanted to focus on one aspect of Mr. Mamdani's platform. That he doesn't believe that billionaires should exist. I would assume that to mean that he wants to do something (as a democrat socialist) that Bernie Sanders advocated for, which is a 100% tax on income/assets over a certain amount. I would guess that means anyone approaching a billion dollars in net worth would not get to keep anything over $999,999,999.00. While in the world of socialism, this sounds ideal and nobody needs that much money is the argument. By the way, does anyone notice that in socialism, the politicians are still wealthy? I thought many New Yorkers advocated for "no kings"?
The problem is that billionaire types of rich people are rich because they generate wealth and most often know how to protect it. Nobody with knowledge and resources will allow government to take away any assets beyond a billion dollars. They would take "capital flight", which would be to leave NY, or the UA and go to tax havens such as Switzerland or the Cayman islands. The irony with Mr. Sander's argument also, is that he's worth a lot of money. Maybe not a billion, but tens of millions. I don't see him surrendering any of his assets that he "doesn't need" voluntarily. So maybe, just maybe his idea in a NIMBY one?
I did a check just before writing this article. The top 1% of earners in the US pays 40% of all taxes in the US. So much for the myth that the rich don't pay their fair share. To expand this, the top 25% or so of earners in the US pay 80% of the taxes. So, the rich not paying their fair share is a myth. Certain politicians keep saying this, but they are speaking without a factual basis. The bottom 75% of earners pay about 10% of federal taxes.
But socialism may seem like a good idea to young people who entertain the idea of being able to receive universal basic income, along with free bus service, etc. Rent controlled apartments, etc. But when you have too many people receiving and not contributing, the system starts to fail. Also, rent controlled apartments falls apart when landlords get increased property taxes and expenses and deem the venture unable to render a profit. Then you run out of rentals.
Let me paint another picture: Elon Musk is currently the richest man in the world with a net worth just below 500 billion. If the government were to take away all of Elon's assets and distributed all of that in cash to everyone on the planet, each person alive would get about $40 each. In poor countries, the money would go further of course, and, in the US, you might get a meal or few days' worth of groceries. Then Elon would be broke, unable to fund Space X, research on things to make our lives better and about 160,000 high paying jobs in highly skilled areas would be out of work, and unable to contribute to the tax base. The one-time $40 payment would be gone in no time, but the aftereffects would be devastating. I know that nobody has proposed doing this, but squeezing the rich as a whole could still see this kind of effect spread out. Capital flight is real. California and New York already had a large exodus of residents to tax friendly states like Texas and Florida. Gavin Newsom can deny it and claim how big and great California's economy is. And while he might be right, Silicon Valley existed well before Newsom was governor and if taxes and regulations squeeze out companies like Nvidia and other big tech companies, then what? What if New York's Wall Street moved to Florida? The tax consequences to these states would be devastating.
These are just some reasons why I do not believe socialism can succeed. I hope Mr. Mamdani moves towards the center on some of his policy ideas, but if not, I believe New York will struggle greatly. Maybe not immediately, but socialism fails when the government runs out of other people's money to fund "free stuff". And this article doesn't even address Mr. Mamdani's idea to replace armed police with social workers and having a smaller police force. There's a reason why people generally speaking, do not rob banks if a police car is in the parking lot, and people generally do not speed and drive recklessly if an officer is on to road with them. It's called deterrence. It's almost the same reason why many night clubs that bouncers that look like the incredible Hulk at the doors.
Good luck New York City. I hope I'm wrong, but I highly doubt it.
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